Be wary of panniers

I've had two bad incidents with my MEC panniers. First time, one of the stupid long straps got tangled up in my rear derailleur...while I was riding. And it was night.

Second incident was yesterday, I was about to leave when I realized my rear wheel wasn't turning. I thought the rear brake needed to be fiddled with, I fiddled, didn't make the wheel work. Then I noticed one of the straps I neglected to snap shut was twisted all the way around my rear wheel, behind the plastic ring. Also, the #%#$%#$% buckle was stuck in my spokes. I got out my Swiss Army Knife and cut the strap off (couldn't get it out otherwise) then i kicked the wall beside me, then I punched the wall.

After much swearing, I finally got the strap out of the wheel, and removed the buckle without damaging my spokes. I was not amused.

I'm probably going to take the panniers to MEC today, which I should have done months ago and tell them what happened. What if that strap had done that while I was riding?

I initially tied off the first offending strap, but then it got grease all over my pannier so I ended up cutting it off later. The one yesterday I had to cut off immediately to get it loose from the wheel.

In my signature it's "tiem" which is an internet way of typing "time."

Anyway, I took the panniers into MEC today. I had been using the first strap that got tangled in my derailleur wrong but the photo of the pannier on their website doesn't obviously show that strap. I only ever got a 30 second instruction on how to attach the pannier to my rear rack, not instructions in how all the straps work. The customer service person knew exactly how the straps should be used and showed me in detail what I was supposed to be doing. Turns out I also needed a longer J-hook which she provided.

so they are sending the mangled pannier to get new straps put onto it, which I won't be charged for. I'm going to try to remove the grease stains with dish soap when I get the pannier back.

Let this be a lesson to those who haven't used panniers before: make sure you REALLY know exactly how to use them so you don't risk destroying your derailleur or rear wheel or ???. They are a lot more complicated than ya think.

I agree with some of the other posters. your problems all sound like end user generated operational issues unrelated to the design and normal operation of the otherwise useful equiptment.

I just took a quick look at the MEC website and I can't see how anything that is properly secured can be causing issues. I am sure if they are not full enough there is slack in some of the straps but most people would tuck that in somewhere after connecting everything.

In my signature it's "tiem" which is an internet way of typing "time."

In other words, "sloppy proofing."

That which does not kill me has made a massive tactical blunder.
Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen. Louis L'Amour
'07 Giant Cypress WSD "Radagast the Beige-and-Black" * '97 (?) Bianchi Premio "Orion" * '09 Trek Allant "The Black Pearl"

I have some Ortlieb panniers and I managed to get the straps caught in my rear wheel and I almost got hurt because of it. But that was not the fault of the panniers. That was me being stupid and not making sure my straps were secured.

Well I did a search for the word "tiem" an came up with nothing. No such word.

Either your internet-fu is quite weak, or you're deliberately lying. A simple search turned up multiple occurrences, including several used the way the OP does (Off of lolcats, of course!)

"There is no greater wonder than the way the face and character of a woman fit so perfectly in a man's mind, and stay there, and he could never tell you why. It just seems it was the thing he most wanted." Robert Louis Stevenson

That which does not kill me has made a massive tactical blunder.
Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen. Louis L'Amour
'07 Giant Cypress WSD "Radagast the Beige-and-Black" * '97 (?) Bianchi Premio "Orion" * '09 Trek Allant "The Black Pearl"

In the end, why the #$@! do you care if someone wants to deliberately misspell a word in their sig?

"There is no greater wonder than the way the face and character of a woman fit so perfectly in a man's mind, and stay there, and he could never tell you why. It just seems it was the thing he most wanted." Robert Louis Stevenson

Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade in public. Never clothe them in vulgar and shoddy attire.
—George W. Crane

That which does not kill me has made a massive tactical blunder.
Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen. Louis L'Amour
'07 Giant Cypress WSD "Radagast the Beige-and-Black" * '97 (?) Bianchi Premio "Orion" * '09 Trek Allant "The Black Pearl"